


Obliviation

by lirin



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, White Collar
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-21
Updated: 2018-10-21
Packaged: 2019-08-01 11:59:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16284209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: Neal only had to pick this lock and he could get out of here. Too bad there was something wrong with the lock—and why was Agent Burke pointing a stick at him?





	Obliviation

**Author's Note:**

  * For [isquinnabel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/isquinnabel/gifts).



Agent Burke was a clever man. Almost brilliant, in fact, Neal thought. After all, wouldn't he have to be, to catch the famous (and brilliant and handsome and charming, if he did say so himself) Neal Caffrey?

Not that Neal was caught quite yet. There were at least four ways out of this building, and the feds couldn't have found all of them. Neal slipped his lock picks out of his vest pocket and set to work gaining access to the most unlikely and unpredictable of the four: the back entrance to the janitor's closet.

The lock was strangely challenging. Every time Neal thought he'd almost gotten all the pins raised, he'd find that one of the pins had gotten entirely out of place. And the pins all just felt wrong; it was like he was trying to pick a lock that was filled with glue.

If Mozzie were here, he might have had a suggestion or a clever tool or something to get the door open. It seemed like he always did. But Mozzie had gotten spooked when the FBI got on their tail, and now Neal was all alone. Well, all alone except for a couple dozen FBI agents watching every potential exit in this building, and Special Agent Peter Burke around somewhere too, trying to figure out—

Oh. Apparently he had already figured out where Neal was. If Burke had already known about this room, maybe he had something to do with why the lock had been acting up so badly. Some sort of fancy secret agent lock glue? Neal wasn't sure quite what sort of substance could make the lock act up to quite that extent, but there must be something. Not that it mattered now. Neal let go of the lockpicks, ignoring the soft tinkle they made as they fell out of the lock and scattered on the floor. Raising his hands, he turned around slowly to face Burke.

Agent Burke was alone, and as far as Neal could tell, he didn't have a gun. That was nice; Neal didn't like guns. But it just didn't seem right. An agent would never confront a suspect without being appropriately armed; and besides, Burke's whole posture looked like he considered himself armed. With utter confidence, he stood there, brandishing a stick. Was it some sort of stick gun? The physics didn't seem possible, but maybe it involved blowdarts. Compressed air? Regardless, Neal knew better than to make a move. Burke was smart, and he wouldn't be standing here unless he knew he had the upper hand.

"Hello, Neal," Agent Burke said. "You're under arrest."

Distressingly unoriginal. Neal didn't speak, but nodded at the stick with a raised eyebrow. Wold Burke want to explain his new toy, or would he want to keep Neal guessing?

"You see, we've figured you out," Burke said. "I have to say it took me a while to put two and two together; for the longest time I thought you might be a non-magical criminal who'd just stumbled across a few things he had no business with. But eventually there were a few too many slip-ups."

"Uh, no, that's just my natural skills," Neal said. He had to keep Burke talking if he was going to have any chance at figuring out what was going on here. _Non-magical?_ Burke didn't seriously think there was such a thing as real magic, did he?

"Right," Burke said with a disbelieving chuckle. "And the vanishing bonds? I'm supposed to think those were just natural skill? Or that time when you and your pal replaced half of the paintings in the Horton Gallery with fakes? You can stop pretending, Neal. We're on to you. It's quite nice actually, going after someone who's actually a fellow wizard. I've had to Obliviate too many Muggles lately, who had stumbled across things they shouldn't know about."

"Makes sense you'd want a break from that," Neal said warily. Obliviation didn't sound good.

"Now stand still and put your hands at your sides, you know the drill. You _have_ been arrested by wizarding agents before, haven't you?"

"No, never," Neal said, with utter sincerity.

"Huh. I wondered, since we couldn't find any arrest records for you, but it seemed unlikely that you'd escaped all attention from our own kind. Your Muggle arrest record is long enough, though a bit scattered from all the different aliases."

"Nope, just Muggle arrests," Neal said. If he used the word correctly—which he was 99% sure he was—then that should make Burke less likely to guess that he hadn't even heard of Muggles two minutes ago. It had to be the opposite of wizards, right? Magic, wizards…if he thought about the entire situation too much, it seemed unbelievable, so he told himself not to. All his thinking needed to be focused on getting out of this situation. Burke was still pointing the stick at him, but now Neal found himself suspecting that it really was some sort of magic wand, and not a blowgun at all. Neal let his eyes travel up from the wand. Burke was wearing standard FBI agent attire: an ill-fitting suit that looked like he'd bought it straight out of college, and worn it consistently since then. Polyester, it looked like. The lapels were too wide, and so was Burke's hideous tie. Neal blinked. Were those what he thought they were? He raised his hand slowly, eyes locked on Burke's. He pointed at Burke's shoulder. "Do you know what that is?"

"My shoulder?" Burke asked slowly. He looked like he thought Neal was up to something, which, well—that was probably wise.

"The fibers," Neal said. "May I?" Still telegraphing his movements, Neal reached out and plucked the strands from Burke's coat. Oh good, his vision hadn't played him wrong. "Do you know what this is?"

He had Burke's interest now, that was sure. "No idea. What is it?"

"What's it worth if I tell you what this is?" Neal asked. "Is it worth a meeting?"

Burke shrugged, but the stick he held never wavered from its aim at Neal's heart. "Okay."

Neal nodded acceptance. "This," he said with all the flair he could muster, "is one of the security fibers for the new Canadian hundred dollar bill." At least here, he was on more certain ground. The possible existence of magic couldn't change what he held in his hand.

"Interesting," Burke said. "I'll look into that, and if you're right, you'll have your meeting. Now, step back and hold your hands at your sides, I don't care whether you know the drill or not. Good. _Immobulus_."

Light shot from the tip of Burke's magic wand or whatever it was. Neal started to make a wisecrack—Burke would be expecting it of him—but he found that he couldn't open his mouth. He couldn't move, couldn't blink…

He felt himself start to topple over, and then Burke was there, catching him. This couldn't be happening. There was no such thing as magic. There was no such thing as magic wands, and certainly no such thing as magic spells that held you tighter than any handcuffs or cell Neal had ever been in before. And how could you break out of something like this, when you couldn't even move? It was probably for the best that Neal couldn't make a sound, because he was pretty sure he wouldn't be able to help screaming, otherwise. And Burke might be slightly less likely to believe that all this magic stuff was old hat to Neal if he were crying like a baby.

Burke's team was here, now. They picked up Neal's board-stiff form and carried him into some sort of vehicle. Neal let his eyes roll back in his head—the one movement that remained to him—and hoped to sleep, or faint, or something. He'd avoided being Obliviated and he'd (hopefully) convinced Burke that he was what he thought he was. There was nothing more he could do now.

* * *

Neal lost track of time for a while after that. Somebody eventually released him from the creepy _Immobulus_ effects, but kept him locked in a cell that didn't look like any modern prison he'd ever been in. This place had a lot more of the classic dungeon look to it, with cold barren stone walls, and absolutely nothing to do except sit and think.

And there was only one thing to think about: magic. It seemed very likely that magic really did exist; Neal couldn't think of any other way that someone could be immobilized without touching them. Unless there had been someone behind him with a dart gun…? But to what purpose? Burke wasn't the type to toy with someone or try to make a target question their sanity. Not that Neal was questioning his sanity, of course. He felt totally fine, except for that one little detail of wondering what in the world was going on here.

He'd seen incredible things happen before without magic. Some of the stunts he and Mozzie had pulled…those were the days, all right. Burke himself had mentioned the thing with the Horton Gallery, except he thought it was magical. So if there was a non-magical explanation for that, there could be a non-magical explanation for this, right?

There was a non-magical explanation for the Horton Gallery, right? Mozzie had mumbled something about a piece of gear he'd bought in a second-hand shop, and Neal had been so caught up in the high of having successfully swapped out that many forgeries that he hadn't really paid much attention to what Mozzie was saying.

Neal's brain stuttered to a halt. Mozzie was a—what had Burke called people who use magic, anyway? Wizards?—okay, so Mozzie was a wizard. That certainly explained how he'd gotten the bonds to disappear so easily, too, and that thing with the train that one time. Were all of Mozzie's random tools and gear merely shams? That certainly explained why Neal had found Mozzie's Find-the-Lady setup so difficult to adapt for his own use, if Mozzie had been using magic to make the lady come and go.

And here he'd thought there were no more new ways to cheat at Find the Lady.

Why hadn't Mozzie trusted him? They'd been friends for years, pulled a ton of clever cons and worked together on some really amazing forgeries. Sure, Mozzie wouldn't have trusted him with something like that on the day they met, but after so many years together, couldn't he have breathed some sort of hint about it? Or would he have had to Obliviate anyone who knew about that, the same as Burke threatened?

Neal really, really didn't want to be Obliviated. And if Burke figured out that he'd guessed wrong, that was exactly what was going to happen.

So he'd just have to make sure Burke didn't realize he was wrong.

* * *

It was at least a day or two later (judging by the meals, as there was no other way to tell time in this dark place) when Burke arrived for the promised meeting. "I don't think you belong in Azkaban," Burke greeted him.

Neal nodded firm agreement. "Me neither." He would have preferred if Burke had led with a sentence where he knew what every single word meant, but six out of seven wasn't bad. "I want to help you catch the Dutchman."

"By being, what, prison pen pals?"

"You can get me out of here," Neal said. "Released into your custody. I haven't read up on all the case law, but there's Muggle precedent at very least."

Burke wasn't as hard of a sell as Neal had thought he might be. He must really not want Neal to go to Azkaban. (Thank goodness they agreed on that.) He made an assortment of desultory comments about Neal's future, and then a few more about his past, and then they finally got down to things. "You won't be allowed a wand, of course," Peter said.

Thank goodness; he wouldn't have known what to do with one if he had. "Of course not," Neal said.

"And we'll be using a locator spell on you. A bit like the Trace, but much more individualized, and with a few special touches that my team came up with, that make it downright unbreakable, even if you did get your hands on a wand or a friend."

"I suppose that's no more than I should expect," Neal said. "Does it…have a way to be removed if you yourself choose to remove it, or am I stuck with it forever?"

"Oh, I can remove it," Peter said. "But it's going to take a lot to make me want to, now that I've finally caught you."

"I'm sure," Neal said. "So, what does your team do?"

"We work within the FBI to find crimes that have a magical component, and keep the Muggles from figuring out what's going on as best we can while solving the case—"

"Also as best as you can?" Neal asked with a grin.

"My best is very good," Burke said. "Look who caught you."

"Good point," Neal said. "So we have a deal?"

"We have a deal," Burke said. He clapped Neal on the shoulder. "It'll take me a couple days to make the arrangements; I'll come back for you then."

Neal watched him stroll out of the cell. He'd pretended to know how to use magic for multiple days now...surely he could do it for a lifetime? No preferable alternatives were presenting themselves, that was for sure. It would help that he wouldn't actually be allowed to use magic. He mainly needed to have the proper lingo. Once he was out of here, maybe he could get his hands on a magic dictionary. Or Mozzie. Could he get a message to Mozzie? At least he knew what had spooked Mozzie, months ago. He must have figured out that the magical version of the feds had noticed his usage of magic. (Maybe he even thought he'd been protecting Neal, getting him away from any trace of magic. Too bad that hadn't been enough.)

Well, he had plans now, and more plans to make once he was outside. And then he'd just take it one day at a time, the same as he always did. There was one thing to be said for knowing magic existed...life was certainly going to be even more exciting.


End file.
